Technical Note No. 40: Old Italic glyph variation

Michael Everson

2015-08-06

The Old Italic script unifies a number of related historical located on Italian peninsula which were used for non-Indo-European languages (Etruscan and probably North Picene, which is likely not related to Etruscan), and various Indo-European languages belonging to the Italic branch (Faliscan and members of the Sabellian group, including Oscan, Umbrian, and South Picene). The ultimate source for the alphabets in ancient Italy is Euboean Greek used at Ischia and Cumae in the bay of Naples in the eighth century BCE. Unfortunately, no Greek abecedaries from southern Italy have survived. The alphabets for Faliscan, Oscan, Umbrian, North Picene, and South Picene all derive from an original Etruscan form of the repertoire. The Alpine or North Italic alphabets, which include the Venetic, Raetic, and Cisalpine (Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish) alphabets, have also been unified with Old Italic. The North Italic alphabets are thought to be the source for Runic, which is encoded at U+16A0–U+16FF.

The unification of these alphabets into a single Old Italic script requires language-specific fonts because the glyphs most commonly used may differ somewhat depending on the language being represented. This Technical Note provides a chart showing a set of common glyph variants for Old Italic, which may be used to assist in font development, for instance. North Italic scripts are shown to the right. The first symbol (that is, the left-most symbol) listed in each column is the most common; rarer symbols are not listed. The chart covers the many historical alphabets of Italy.

The Messapic is also found on the Italian peninsula, and was used for a separate Indo- European branch, Messapic. The Messapic alphabet was derived directly from Greek sources, not from an Etruscan prototype. Accordingly, Messapic should be unified with Greek, not Old Italic, and hence is not included on the chart.

Bibliography͔ http://www.univie.ac.at/lexlep http://www.univie.ac.at/raetica Lejeune, Michel. 1974. Manuel de la langue vénète. Heidelberg: Carl Winter-Universitätsverlag. Morandi, Alessandro. 1982. Epigrafia italica. Roma: L’Erma di Bretschneider. Pellegrini, Giovan Battista. 1951. “Osservazioni sulle nuove iscrizioni nordetrusche di Sanzeno”, Archivio per l’Alto Adige 45, 307 (1a). Pellegrini, Giovanni Battista, and Aldo Luigi Prosdocimi. 1967. La Lingua Venetica. Vol. I: Le iscrizioni. Padova: Istituto di glottologia dell’Università di Padova. Wallace, Rex. 2004. “Venetic” in Roger D. Woodard (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’ Ancient Languages, University of Cambridge, pp. 840-856.

Page 1 Mar Et1 Et2 Osc Umb Fal NPi SPi Ven Rae Cis A 𐌀 𐌀  𐌀 𐌀  𐌀   BE 𐌁 𐌁 𐌁 𐌁 𐌁 KE  𐌂 𐌂 𐌂 𐌂 𐌂 DE 𐌃   E 𐌄 𐌄 𐌄 𐌄 𐌄 𐌄 𐌄 𐌄  VE 𐌅 𐌅 𐌅   𐌅  ZE 𐌆 𐌆 𐌆 I  I  HE   𐌇  𐌇  𐌇 THE 𐌈 𐌈 𐌈   𐌈   I 𐌉 𐌉 𐌉 𐌉 𐌉 𐌉 𐌉 𐌉 𐌉 KA 𐌊 𐌊 𐌊 𐌊 𐌊 𐌊 𐌊 𐌊 EL 𐌋 𐌋 𐌋 𐌋 𐌋 𐌋 𐌋 𐌋  EM 𐌌 𐌌 𐌌   𐌌 𐌌  𐌌 EN 𐌍 𐌍 𐌍   𐌍 𐌍   𐌎 ESS 𐌟 O 𐌏 𐌏 𐌏  𐌏 PE 𐌐 𐌐 𐌐   𐌐    SHE 𐌑 𐌑 𐌑 𐌑 𐌑 𐌑𐌑 KU 𐌒 𐌒   ER 𐌓 𐌓 𐌓   𐌓  𐌓   𐌔 𐌔 𐌔 𐌔 𐌔 𐌔 𐌔𐌔 TE 𐌕 𐌕      𐌕   U 𐌖  𐌖 𐌖 𐌖 𐌖 𐌖 𐌖𐌖𐌖 EKS 𐌗 𐌗 𐌗 PHE 𐌘 𐌘 𐌘  ᛳ KHE 𐌙 𐌙 𐌙 𐌙 𐌙 EF 𐌚 𐌅𐌇,𐌚 𐌚 𐌚  ERS 𐌛 CHE 𐌜 II 𐌝  UU 𐌞   YE 𐌭 N.TSE 𐌮 S.TSE 𐌯

Old Italic alphabets North Italic alphabets

Marsiliana Oscan North Picene Venetic Archaic Etruscan Umbrian South Picene Raetic Neo-Etruscan Faliscan Cisalpine Celtic

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